Ethereal Lightness
by harrypotterlove
Summary: Melanie is sixteen, goes to Hogwarts...and has an eating disorder. This is a story about her struggle.


This is a fanfic about an eating disorder. If that bothers you or triggers you – please refrain from reading. My main purpose of this story is to depict what it really feels like to have an eating disorder, so that hopefully the hackneyed surmises of what it is like to have an eating disorder without actually having one will cease. This first chapter is in the form of a diary entry where I just started off. I'll bring in more of the 'plot' in later. Please review to state your opinion! Thank you.

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On retrospect, I sometimes think about myself – the way I act, why I act this way, and other such things. But then I realize that it does not matter to me, I realize this is my life and it has been like this since I was twelve years old.

Do I have pride for this? Do I take some sort of inner satisfaction for my way of life? Not necessarily. I understand that I live a convoluted life, one that is surely out of the ordinary, but one that also has become my own. I will not completely say that I despise the way I am, for as time passes, I realize this is who I have become.

I must say that for the times that gluttony has intruded my life, and when I consume barely without thinking of my actions, barely considering the damages as I am trying to repress them. It is just one piece of bread – only ninety calories – this will be fine. And then my control is lost, and I ravage myself to the extent that I am emotionally shaken. Perhaps they realize that I am eating more than usual, at a rapid frequency, but to them it is not such a big deal. It destroys me.

For perhaps lately my best memories were when I did get thinner – granted I was sick – vomiting and having an upset stomach for the week, but I was thinner then and those memories are sweet to me. My voracious tendencies have caused me to gain weight, lose weight, and sometimes hit a standstill. I'm not at my highest, but I am definitely at my higher point, and my self worth is closest to zero.

No one sees anything as wrong. I don't mind. I just mind how they think I'm some disgusting swine who has no self-control. I do have self-control… I just lose it sometimes. I do lose twenty pounds within a month, and I work hard to get there. Sometimes I can barely walk and I feel like fainting – dizzy spells engulfing my hazy mind.

I will lose weight, and I do lose weight. Perhaps this does not make any sense. Perhaps many consider myself or at least 'people like me' to be perfectionists - narcissistic entities who only embrace vanity and care for nothing else.

Maybe at one point of my life I wanted to be loved, and I agree I did blame my looks for my lack of friends. I realize this was sophistry, but somehow this mindset has been emblazoned into my soul, and for some reason I need it to be here. For I do not know who I am without it, and I do not know how to live another way. I do not care anymore for perfect grades or exam scores, I do not care about my hair being straightened perfectly anymore, or buying dozens of anti-frizz serums or cleansing solutions for my wretched face. But for some reason, my indelible desire to be light as the wind has never faded away, and I do not think it ever will.

This is my life, my euphoria, and my insanity.

Yet somehow I am still here, four years past from the onset of this life, for some reason writing this, and not completely understanding why.

Life has become a question to me…and I am quite sure that many will ask me. Is this worth it? If you have self-control can't you just stop? No. I can't. For my life is not truly a life if I am not light – I have missed many opportunities for I never felt good enough, and my delays to my lightness I will never forget.

I must stop this pointless ranting. My friends are coming, and I am sure I'm going to make up another pathetic excuse as to why I decided not to come to the Great Hall for dinner. Besides I still have Transfiguration, Charms, and the exceedingly long Potion's essay to complete – although I seem to have no energy whatsoever to finish it.

Their stomachs are sated and content, but I know that I never will feel this way. A fulfillment of hunger just makes me disgusted, as the idea of lipids creeping and clinging like some entangling parasite makes me cringe.

--Melanie


End file.
